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8.

The little one sleeps in its cradle; 140
I lift the gauze , and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.
[8.1]

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill;
I peeringly view them from the top.
[8.2]

The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bed-room;
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair—I note where the pistol has fallen. 145
[8.3]

The blab of the pave , the tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the promenaders ;
The heavy omnibus , the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor;
The snow-sleighs, the clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snowballs;
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs;
The flap of the curtain’d litter , a sick man inside, borne to the hospital; 150
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall;
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star, quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd;
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes;
What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sun-struck, or in fits;
What exclamations of women taken suddenly, who hurry home and give birth to babes; 155
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here—what howls restrain’d by decorum ;
Arrests of criminals, slights , adulterous offers made, acceptances, rejections with convex lips;
I mind them or the show or resonance of them—I come, and I depart.
[8.4]

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